AUTHOR ARCHIVES

Brittany Ballenstedt

Brittany Ballenstedt writes Nextgov's Wired Workplace blog, which delves into the issues facing employees who work in the federal information technology sector. Before joining Nextgov, Brittany covered federal pay and benefits issues as a staff correspondent for Government Executive and served as an associate editor for National Journal's Technology Daily. She holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from Mansfield University and originally hails from Pennsylvania. She currently lives near Travis Air Force Base, Calif., where her husband is stationed.

October 16, 2008
There are only 25 days until the annual open season for federal benefits elections begins, and it might be wise to use this time to evaluate whether a flexible spending account is right for you. FSAs allow you to make pretax contributions to a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation-protected savings account...

October 3, 2008
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has published a new directive that will standardize job descriptions across the 16 intelligence agencies and play a key role in establishing a common pay system, a top personnel official said this week. The Sept. 17 document establishes a communitywide policy for...

October 2, 2008
The Homeland Security Department on Wednesday announced it would put an end to its new personnel system because of a provision signed into law this week that eliminates funding for the plan. In a memo issued to DHS employees, Tom Cairns, the department's chief human capital officer, said a provision...

October 2, 2008
As participants in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program brace for the biggest premium hikes since 2005, many will be weighing their out-of-pocket costs. Come Nov. 10, when open season begins, employees will have 269 plans to choose from. But before deciding whether to switch or stay put, be sure...

October 1, 2008
Homeland Security's new HR chief has his work cut out for him as morale hits bottom. Few federal agencies have been the brunt of more jokes for their low morale, at least recently, than the Homeland Security Department. But for Tom Cairns, the department's new chief human capital officer, the...

September 30, 2008
The Defense Department is dropping plans to convert employees represented by labor unions to its new personnel system, at least for now, the program's top personnel official said Monday. Brad Bunn, program executive officer for the National Security Personnel System, told Government Executive that the current Defense leadership has no...

September 29, 2008
The Government Accountability Office on Friday arrived at its first tentative collective bargaining agreement with its new union. The deal, subject to ratification by the entire bargaining unit, covers the operations of International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers Local 1921 and employee rights. Union officials and GAO managers decided...

September 29, 2008
The Senate on Saturday approved a bill that would give civilian federal employees a 2009 pay hike of 3.9 percent, moving the measure to President Bush for his signature. The chamber voted for the raise as part of the fiscal 2009 Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance and Continuing Appropriations Act (H.R....

September 26, 2008
The Defense Department on Friday issued final regulations to modify portions of its controversial pay-for-performance system, but federal labor unions said some provisions limit the scope of collective bargaining, an issue that could bring the system back to the courts. The regulations, published in the Federal Register, modify the National...

September 25, 2008
Premiums for the federal employee health plan will rise by an average of 7 percent in 2009, a sizable increase from the previous year. The government's portion of the overall premium for the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program will rise 6.5 percent while the increase for employees will average 7.9...

Database-level encryption had its origins in the 1990s and early 2000s in response to very basic risks which largely revolved around the theft of servers, backup tapes and other physical-layer assets. As noted in Verizon’s 2014, Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR)1, threats today are far more advanced and dangerous.

In order to better understand the current state of external and internal-facing agency workplace applications, Government Business Council (GBC) and Riverbed undertook an in-depth research study of federal employees. Overall, survey findings indicate that federal IT applications still face a gamut of challenges with regard to quality, reliability, and performance management.

PIV- I And Multifactor Authentication: The Best Defense for Federal Government Contractors

This white paper explores NIST SP 800-171 and why compliance is critical to federal government contractors, especially those that work with the Department of Defense, as well as how leveraging PIV-I credentialing with multifactor authentication can be used as a defense against cyberattacks

This research study aims to understand how state and local leaders regard their agency’s innovation efforts and what they are doing to overcome the challenges they face in successfully implementing these efforts.

The U.S. healthcare industry is rapidly moving away from traditional fee-for-service models and towards value-based purchasing that reimburses physicians for quality of care in place of frequency of care.